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Updated: Aug 12, 2026

High Speed Sub-GHz Spectrometer for Brillouin Scattering Analysis
Published on: December 22, 2015
Spectral broadening of sound scattered by advecting atmospheric turbulence
G H Goedecke1, R C Wood, H J Auvermann
1Department of Physics, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces 88003-0001, USA.
Abstract:
Scattering and spectral broadening of a monochromatic sound wave by atmospheric turbulence that is flowing with a uniform constant horizontal wind is considered. The acoustic source and a detector are at rest and at different positions in a ground-fixed frame. Analytic expressions are derived for the sound pressure scattered to the detector by a single eddy. Since distances and the scattering angle change with time as the eddy flows through the scattering volume, the detector signal has time-dependent amplitude and frequency, for which general formulas are derived. A computer code is developed that calculates the scattered signal and its Fourier transform from a single eddy, or from a steady-state collection of eddies of many different scale lengths that represents isotropic homogeneous turbulence flowing with the wind. The code utilizes a time-shift algorithm that reduces the calculation time substantially. Several numerical results from this code are presented, including simulations of a recent experiment. The predicted spectral shape, including peak width and jaggedness, are in good agreement with experiment.
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